We Are the Klunk
by PlainSimpleGarak
Summary: A look at life in the turtle's lair and an adventure gone wrong, told from the point of view of Klunk, Michelangelo's cat. Inspired by Terry Bain's novel: We Are the Cat.
1. Cat Family

Author's Notes: This piece is the result of a plot bunny I had after reading Terry Bain's We Are the Cat. It is told from the point of view of Klunk, as if he can write his thoughts out though help from an experimental machine.

It is written in the _Pluralis majestatis_ form (The "royal we") because it assumes that cats, by their nature, view themselves as royalty, and Klunk views himself as speaking for his entire family.

Disclaimers: I don't hold any claim to either the TMNT franchise or any of Terry Bain's work. As always I had a tremendously good time writing this.

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**We Are the Klunk**

_A TMNT mission told through the eyes of the royal feline._

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**Experiment**

We did not know what would come from Tripwire's experiment, but we were understandably curious. But having one's inner thoughts laid bare for others to read is not something we were completely comfortable with. There is much to us that we would prefer remain a mystery.

Still, in our eyes we do not get enough attention to our thoughts. The best way for this to be made plain is to share our thoughts with our catfamily. So we consented to wear the collar with the flashing lights that Tripwire put around our neck.

Our only caveat was that we would not share our thoughts on our own cat world. We decided to share our thoughts on the world of our catfamily. If it is they who will read it and they who will benefit from it, then it should be about them.

So these are our words, recorded by a machine with lights that flash. Offered to you so that you might understand our catfamily.

**Catfamily**

We live with a number of creatures that do not consider themselves human. This seems to cause them a great deal of worry and confusion. We think that they worry needlessly, for they should all know that they are part of our catfamily. We have decided that each of them is just enough like us, that is to say each of them has enough cat within them, to be important enough to join our catfamily. This is no small honor.

Perhaps if they knew this they would not worry so much about what is human and what is not human about them. This usually turns into worry about what human society would think about them. We do not worry about what humans think or do or say because human society has the tendency to avoid the truth. Their language comes up with many names to describe each one. Turtle, ninja, brother, son, freak, hero, mutant, student, vigilante… the list is never ending. Each word puts a different slant to who they are. We are not this way.

We call them Hands. This is because it is what they have and what separates them from us. Hands to pet, hands to open the can of cat food. Hands to open the door so we can go in or out, hands to build things, hands to fight things. Every one of them, even those who they call human, all have hands. So this is what they are and what they will be in our catfamily.

**Names**

We know that we do not speak the language of the Hands. We can hear it and understand it, but we do not speak it. Therefore we cannot tell them what our real name is. We know they call us Klunk. That is because when we were first brought here we did not tread very carefully, and we knocked many things down. In some ways we applaud the Hands for giving us a name that described us, but we do not usually listen to it. Unless, of course, we smell food.

We hear that the Hands call one another names, but these names have very little explanation for whom they really are. As such, we have not bothered to actually learn these names. At times we understand that a name, like _Michelangelo_, means that one of our Hands must stop petting and leave to do something less important. To us this name means that the proper adoration of the cat has been interrupted for another cause. These are not names we choose to acknowledge. We have decided that our catfamily requires new names, ones that more accurately describe them. If they choose to call us Klunk, we choose to call them names that better befit them.

Long Whiskers

Long Whiskers is the eldest of the family. We choose to call him Long Whiskers because it is both descriptive and fitting. He does, indeed, have long whiskers; but moreover, to us long whiskers denote wisdom and age. A cat that can live long enough so that his ears tuft over with grey and his whiskers grow long and curled is a very wise cat indeed. The same is true for Long Whiskers. It is he who feeds us when all others have forgotten; he who sets the boundaries, he who remembers we need to go out and more importantly come back in.

There is something about the smell of Long Whiskers that disturbs us. Something that reads in our mind that he is not what he should be. His smell is of small things that we would like to chase and pounce, but there is also the smell of things he burns: of age and wisdom.

When it comes down to it, we have learned that the nose may lie.

Kittenbrother

Of all the Hands, we are closest to Kitten Brother. It was he who saved us from the cold of the overworld, and for this we sleep beside him and protect him at night. More so than any of the other hands he is our brother and we seek solace with him if one of the Hands is displeased with us.

Kittenbrother is much like a kitten. He is always full of energy, so much that at times we wonder if he can fly. We watch him skittering around the home, leaping and ducking and dodging. Sometimes for play, sometimes because he is being chased. Sometimes we even are the one chasing him or being chased. If there is any Hand that might catch us, it is Kittenbrother. Also like a kitten, he does not always remember the things that Long Whiskers does. He will open the door for us but forget to shut it so the home is cold, or he will forget to open it for us when we wish to return. We would get angry but he is our most constant source of a lap and a hand to pet. He is our brother.

We see, too, that in his eyes he can be like a kitten. More than all the other Hands, he retains a sense of innocence and wonder. He even has the blue eyes of a mewling. But he is also cat, and as such he can bare his claws and spit if he needs to.

We consent to his love for these reasons. That and Kittenbrother understands the need for a nest in the bedding. This is why we sleep with him.

Tripwire

Tripwire is constantly surrounded by wires, and things that flash and beep. We are fascinated by everything around him, and we make it our goal to sneak in his room whenever possible. He is a meticulous Hand, as careful in what he does as we are in grooming our coat. This means that when our paws get entangled in the wires he leaves we are usually chased from the area. We see this as a challenge. The flashing lights, the gentle hums, the boards that make music when we step upon them; all of these entice us to come explore Tripwire's lair. We must bat at the lights because we never know when they will change colors, or flash faster. We must tug on the wires to see if the hum gets louder or dies away.

All of this causes great anxiety in Tripwire's voice, and he will chase us to the very darkest depths of his lair to make sure we do not chew on any of his cords. In those depths are the most marvelous secrets! Things that roll and crinkle and crunch when we step on them. But when we roll them out of their hiding places and into the light of the room, Tripwire scoops us up, reclaims his toy, and puts us back in Kittenbrother's den.

You would think Tripwire would be more thankful for our help.

Cornerstone

We call him Cornerstone for many reasons. He will sit and meditate frequently, and when he does he is still as a stone. We cannot disturb him while he thinks for he will remove us from his presence as calmly as stone, so we will sit in the corner and watch him. When we do, we pretend we are a statue, and see which one of us will stretch first. His demeanor to us is also like stone. While our antics amuse Long Whiskers, Kitten Brother, and sometimes Tripwire, Cornerstone seems immune to our charms. He may scratch us on occasion but he will never consent to cuddle.

Moreover, he is a foundation in the catfamily, like a corner stone in a building. He reminds Kitten Brother to feed us and let us out. He rounds up the rest of the catfamily. Without Cornerstone they are chaotic, like dogs off a leash. There is much that Cornerstone must carry.

Mirror

We have difficulty in naming the last of the catfamily because, unlike the others, Mirror is the only one to avoid us.

For a long time we avoided the bathroom. No matter how much we enjoyed the sink, and the cool place behind the toilet, when we entered the bathroom there was another cat. It did not smell like another cat, but it moved like a cat. It looked very angry to find it was not alone; and we were very angry at it. We have seen that same expression on Mirror's face.

Slowly we learned that there was no other cat, but that something in the bathroom was showing us ourselves. Much the same is with Mirror. He seems to absorb the worries of the cat family and reflect them back with loud words. He is the kind that is on the wall, almost like a support in the same way as Cornerstone, but more fragile. He has not yet learned to be like stone.

We have seen a mirror break. We pushed it off a desk to see if the othercat would go away. It made a terrible noise, and then dozens of tiny othercats appeared. Angry looking othercats, all of them had sharp edges that cut our paws. We have seen Mirror get very angry and things break in much the same way.

Now we sleep in the sink, but it is hard to remember that we are alone in the bathroom. Such as it is with Mirror.

Cloud and White Mask

There are two more who are close to our catfamily, but not in it. We have deemed them important enough to have a name.

Cloud is the only female we have met. We call her Cloud because she is soft. Her hands are soft, and we like to be petted by them. Her lap is soft, and we feel it is our right to sleep upon it. Her hair is soft, and we love to adventure within it. When we do, we feel like we are flying. Sometimes we even chew on it a little; it is so magnificent we cannot help it. Then we may actually be flying for Cloud does not like such things. She should be honored we pay her such attention.

White Mask is loud, and his hands are rough. But he becomes calm when we sit in his lap. The only thing we cannot touch is the white mask he puts on to hide the face underneath it. We understand this. We sometimes fall or skid, our paws are not as firm as they used to be, but we always wear the same expression. Because we meant to do that. You must never know otherwise. This is White Mask.

But we know what White Mask hides. We can feel him relax when he pets our fur. We know that he is not as tough as he seems. This is why we purr when White Mask offers us a lap. Because we share a little secret. We both know what is behind the mask.


	2. An Ordinary Day

**Can Opener**

We have always hated mornings because this is when Kittenbrother stirs. If Kittenbrother could find a way to leave the bed without letting the draft of cold into the nest of blankets we might forgive mornings altogether. But instead we are jostled and we find we must get up.

The only redeeming thing about mornings is the can opener. We can hear the noise from the darkest depths of Tripwire's room, and it will always bring us running. This is because there is an air of mystery to the sound. We know that it is for us, and we will get a sample - if not a meal from the alarm.

The can itself fascinates us because it is grey and cold and hard. We smell nothing. But after the can opener has done its magic we can smell the delight of what is inside. Kittenbrother likes to smile at us while he uses the can opener and we smile back. He is putting his hands to use; this is the way it should be.

While we sit and wait for the can opener to cast its magic, Cornerstone walks in. He is quiet, and sits with the newspaper. We love to lie upon the newspaper, but something about the expression on the face of stone says that we should content our self with the can opener.

Tuna! The pink fish is our favorite because it smells like hunting in water. Kittenbrother laughs when we twirl around in circles to get it, but he does not understand that we are hunting the smell from the can. As soon as he sets it down we leap, and we pounce! Victory! The tuna is ours.

Normally nothing takes us away from our tuna, but today there is tension in the kitchen. We can hear the break before the words come. The paper is in two pieces, and Cornerstone stands to face Mirror.

We pin our ears down because the voices are not nice. In fact they are very angry, but the exchange is short. Long Whiskers breaks these squabbles up swiftly, like a man breaking up two dogs. The younger Hands listen to him and they sit, staring at one another from across the table. Cornerstone quickly sinks back into his statuary, but mirror cannot erase the expression from his face. We can see now that he wishes Cornerstone would listen to him… or at least show some concern about the subject. But he does not. He only picks up the remaining half of the paper and reads it. Mirror cannot understand that the statuary must remain unchanging. No matter what lies within, they draw their strength from their stony gaze without.

Kittenbrother kneels down beside us, and pets our back absentmindedly. We can feel that he is distracted because his touch is light, like moths against a screen. We give him a bit of a purr to remind him that his place in the catfamily is unchanged before he heads to the table. We content ourselves once again with our tuna.

**Newspaper**

After the Hands have eaten, they leave the kitchen in peace. This is the time they go to their lessons. We enjoy this time because we get command of the house. It is good to be in command.

We decide to inspect the newspaper that has caused us to be interrupted from our tuna, but it does not smell like anything worth fighting over. It smells like ink and coffee, and has a little picture of a burned out building right above the tear line, with big black words that leave little stains on our paw pads when we walk on them.

We think that the Hands need to put their priorities in order.

**Stories**

After the Hands go through training time, Cornerstone takes the green hands out for exercise. Long Whiskers comes out from the training area and sits on the couch to watch his stories. This is our favorite time of the day.

Home is warm and we do not mind the smell of Long Whiskers because his hands are steady and he can pet with long soft strokes, which makes us drowsy. We often fall asleep on his lap and he does not mind. He can sit still for hours and because of this rare gift we reward him with our best purr.

**Broken Mirror**

We did not realize that the stories had ended. We were so comfortable and Long Whiskers is so careful that he rolled us off his lap and on to the couch without waking us up. So the sound of shouting startled us and we ran under the couch.

It is very dark under the couch and we can smell rotting pizza. If there were no shouting we would be very curious about the bug crawling through the carpet and declare war on it. But there is shouting and we peek out to watch it. Mirror's cheeks are almost as red as the mask he wears. We cannot tell if this is because he is angry or because they have all been running through the sewers. Mirror's hands are balled up and stuffed under his armpits. Tripwire is touching his shoulder and trying to pet his fur down.

There are times we love to be petted, and there are times that the touch is overwhelming. We would do anything to get away from it, so we bite. Mirror is much the same, but he does not bite. He pushes Tripwire away and tries to leave. Cornerstone blocks his way.

We wonder what keeps Mirror inside the room? He is a hand, and as such he can use the doorknob, something that we cannot. But something always catches Mirror before he goes. Perhaps this is like when we try to arrange things on Tripwire's desk. Someone always removes us before we can complete our work. The same is with Mirror. There is someone in the way.

Cornerstone is a statue for now. Very faintly we can tell that he does not want to be stone, for inside he is not solid. But there is no other choice for him. He has a duty. We wonder if we should see if Long Whiskers is coming, but there is another round of shouting and we decide to stay where we are. Mirror turns back away. We can see this time that he is angry. Tripwire and Cornerstone are calm. Absorbing, reflecting, Mirror is the one who cannot contain what he feels. We worry that there will be breakage until Kittenbrother appears.

We admire Kittenbrother because he can stop the fight before it breaks loose. There is talking again, but there is no shouting. We do not hear our name, so it must not be important. We watch as Mirror walks off, followed by Cornerstone. His façade is cracking a little. Perhaps behind closed doors he will show Mirror that he feels.

We come out from under the couch, ready to run at Kittenbrother's feet but there is no chance. He is leaving with Tripwire for the outside.

We find our self alone in the room, no Hands to pet us. This is not good. We decide that we should go back to sleep.

**Time**

We usually do not pay any attention to time. We remember routine, but time means little. As long as things happen when they need to happen we do not care how the members of the catfamily come and go.

We did not realize that time had passed while we napped on the couch until Long Whiskers sat back down. We looked up, confused. It was not time for more stories. We have not eaten dinner or gone outside. We have not yet slept in the nest in Kittenbrother's bed. Why would Long Whiskers return to the couch?

Our stomach tells us that it is late. It remembers the tuna of the morning and wants the can opener to sing again. We stretch and go over to Long Whiskers and offer up a little mew. A quiet reminder that we are hungry.

Long Whiskers stretches out a hand and starts to pet. His movements are quick and tense, not like his normal soft gentle strokes. We can feel the tension in his arms, and when we turn, we can see the worry in his face. We are concerned. We must investigate.

We jump down from the couch, and start to sniff in every room. We look in the bathroom even, and the rooms we are not allowed in. We cannot find Kittenbrother. Or Mirror or Tripwire or Cornerstone. We cannot smell anyone but Long Whiskers.

We stop by the kitchen and get a smell of leftover tuna, and our stomach protests that it is hungry.

It is most definitely late.

We take only a few bites before we walk back to Long Whiskers. He has his hands folded together in his lap, staring at the door. We understand now.

We leap into his lap, and the worried pets continue until it is very late.

The door finally opens.


	3. A Troublesome Night

**Smells**

We are up, jostled. It is unusual for Long Whskers to move erratically, and it sets our fur on end. The Hands rush in, and there is talking. Not shouting like before, but a hushed, quiet talking. There are three sets of legs and four sets of hands. This is wrong; it is not the way we know the Hands to walk. We must climb up on the top of the couch before we realize that one of the Hands is being carried. They are clumped together like birds in a nest and we cannot make out details. It is not long before they all move down the hallways towards the room beside Tripwire's Lair.

We understand that the catfamily avoids this room, because when it is opened something bad has happened. We do not know what, so we leap down and follow. The Hands are no longer paying any attention to us, so we slip through the crack between the door and the frame, and under a table.

There is an odd smell in this room. We recognize the smell. It is warm and fresh and full of iron. It is the same smell that comes off a package of new meat when it has not been in the cold box. The same aroma that drifts up from the sink as hot water rains down and the red swirls down the drain. When we are in the kitchen this smell is delicious.

We suddenly realize that in here it is nauseating.

We creep out from the shadows of the table, trying to place our catfamily. Cornerstone is just as his name suggests. He stays in the corner, lending his hands when he is called for. We realize that in this room Tripwire takes control. His hands are precise and busy; the other Hands do his bidding. Even Long Whiskers stays out of the way. Tripwire's voice is even and calm. We know that voice. It is the same voice he uses when we must get our medication that tastes so foul. If we listen to it enough we are calm.

But we cannot be calm yet because we do not know what is going on. So carefully we reach up and crawl up on the chair at the side of the room. There are chairs on almost every wall of this room, as if they were placed there specifically for waiting. And that is what we do. We wait.

From across the room we can see that Mirror sits in another chair. His eyes are cloudy, glazed over with worry and pain. He is here, but not really here. His body sits in the chair, but his eyes live elsewhere. Even his hands seem to be elsewhere. They do not assist Tripwire, but they clench and unclench as if fighting an unseen opponent. We can smell iron wafting from his skin, some of it his own but not much.

Our mind does the math. Tripwire. Cornerstone. Mirror. Long Whiskers.

We have not yet found our Kittenbrother.

In that second our skin seems to shrink, because it lays tight against our skin and our tail fans out. We are big. We are big because we must protect our Kittenbrother. We must find out what has happened.

Tripwire turns, leaving the bed in the center of the room to grab long strips of white fabric from the table. Were the situation different they would make wonderful toys, but we are not paying attention to the strips. We see an opportunity. The jump from the chair to the bed is not high, but it is long, and we must stretch and cling to keep our balance on the end of the bed. Kittenbrother lies there, and he does not stir.

We hear our name being yelled behind us, but it is not important. No, the only thing that is important is Kittenbrother. We lean forward and touch our nose to his cheek. His breath is warm but his skin is cold. He smells like iron and soot.

What is this? We are in the air! Hands have interrupted our search, and we find our self ungraciously deposited outside the door. When we turn, we see Cornerstone shut the door behind us. We are not pleased with this, and we tell him that with our loudest voice. But he is as stone and does not let us in. He obviously does not understand the therapeutic value of a cat.

He does not understand that Kittenbrother is our brother too.

**Solitude**

There are many times when we would rather be alone. For instance, when we are sleeping in the sunbeam we do not want to be petted for it brings the shade. When we are lounging in the sweet, cool, dark of the closet we do not want to be picked up and brought to the couch. This does not mean we always wish to be alone.

We do not want to be alone tonight.

We have expressed our displeasure in every way we know how. We have cried in our sharpest voice in the hope that the Hands might relent. We have scratched at the doorframe in the hopes that it might not be as tightly locked as it looked. We have dug at the carpet underneath the door in the hope that we might be able to tunnel underneath. None of these have worked, and we are stuck on the couch, alone.

We dozed off, because when we open our eyes again we hear voices coming from the kitchen. The hands might call themselves ninjas, but they cannot sneak past us unless we are asleep. So we must have been asleep. Still, if there were Hands in the kitchen, it might mean the door was open, so we jump down and investigate. It shakes against the frame as we push on it, but it does not open. We hear our name.

At times like these we can run like lightening, much like Kittenbrother does when we hear the call 'Michelangelo.' By the time Cornerstone pokes his head up over the counter we are on the chair, washing our paw. We do not know who shook the door. We are innocent.

Cornerstone sits back down, and we wash a bit longer until the voices start up again. It piques our curiosity and we must oversee what is being discussed. We find the counter is best for these sorts of things because we can hide behind the cup rack and watch without being seen.

Cornerstone sits at one end of the table, and Mirror at the other, with a half eaten pizza in between them. Cornerstone is speaking, calm even words that make us want to purr, but it is clear that Mirror is not listening. He pushes the remainder of a pizza crust around his plate, looking off in another direction. His eyes are focused, but not yet clear.

We do not understand what compels Cornerstone to stay. There is softness in his tone and concern in his expression that Mirror refuses to reflect. We understand that this is the solitude posture, the wish to be left alone, yet Cornerstone stays. We wonder if they have been picked up and put outside the door by Tripwire just like our self but this does not seem likely. Not for Cornerstone at least.

We stretch, and move from our hiding place in long sinking steps, as if we were planning to move because we needed to stretch our legs. But our legs are fine. We need to move because we need to see the expressions on their faces.

The sink is a good refuge. As long as it is dry it is cool, sleek, and deep. We can poke our head out from behind the walls and if we are caught we can play like a kitten and give an innocent face. This makes the Hands chuckle and we are left alone. We peer up from the edge, and we can see them both.

Cornerstone is solid. We can see concern etched into his features as if someone had re-chiseled the stone. There is no malice in him. Neither anger nor blame, but we can see cracks at the edges of the stone. He is tired.

Mirror speaks and his voice is rough, like an old cat spitting at a young Tom. His face shows worry, and something else. Some thing hidden, which he keeps from himself as much as he keeps it from Cornerstone. We are curious, but we will not know what it means tonight. Mirror hits hid hands against the table and stands. His words become harsh, but his eyes stay cloudy. He growls and sets his fur on end, not because he is angry, but because he cannot reflect what is inside until he is alone. Slowly Cornerstone sees it too.

Mirror does not say much as he walks past, but we notice that he never meets the eyes of his brother before he heads out the door.

**Oversight**

We understand that things are not as they should be, but that is no reason for the catfamily to fall into chaos. We are very disappointed. We have not been fed.

We tried to rectify this problem through the proper channels. We pawed at the door to Cornerstone's room, but Long Whiskers had given him a cup of something pungent and we found he was sleeping like stone. We pawed at the door of Long Whiskers, but he was not inside. Nor was Tripwire. That left us no choice but to paw at the door of the room where Kittenbrother lay.

We could hear Tripwire's voice saying our name, so we know he heard our call; but he is a most stubborn Hand at times like these. He would not open the door so we could ask him to feed us. So we had to take matters into our own paws.

There are many things in the kitchen that are not designed for cats. They require the use of hands, which we do not have. The breadbox is not one of them. It has a little black rock that sticks to a shiny metal strip, which holds it closed. We learned quite some time ago that with enough work, this little black rock will let go, the door will open, and we will find food inside.

We do not try this very often because we find it is a surefire sentence to be confined to Kittenbrother's room. But we have not been fed, and we have tried to tell the Hands that we are very displeased. There is no other choice.

We sniff around until we find something to our liking, and we proceed to pick it out with our paw and hit it. It rolls out of the box and onto the counter, where it slides. This is good and we start to chase it, until it falls off the counter and into the water bowl. Dragging it out, we pounce on it, and bit the middle. The plastic crunches under our teeth, and it lets out a wheezing sigh as the air is released. We have hunted it. We have killed it. It is now ours.

It takes some time to gnaw through the plastic wrapping that Hands seem to insist putting their food into. We find it strange how they must force their food into strange little shapes. Bread into little discs, potatoes into salty wafers, chicken into tiny O's, all of these mystify us. This is a piece of meat, rolled into a very long log. It is not as good as tuna; there are too many spices in it. But it is food, nonetheless.

**Misunderstanding**

When we said we wanted to go outside, we did not imply that we wanted to stay outside. We believe that Tripwire does not listen to us very well.

We found that hunting and eating the meat-log might not have been the best of ideas. While it was delicious in the mouth, it did not sit very well in our stomach. We found that it was going to make a reappearance, and we did not have much time to decide where it should reappear. We were on the couch and we figured that a bit more color would not be a bad idea. Tripwire did not agree with us.

He had exited from Kittenbrother's room to make coffee, and we must admit that we were feeling a bit too queasy to make a run for the door. When the meat-log came back on us, we quickly found ourselves in his hands.

He looked at us to make sure we were ok, and even gave us a few long pets along the back before he went back for some towels. We decided to follow him, and meow, hoping he would understand that we wanted some better food. Tripwire looked at us and said the N-word.

What did he mean we could not have more food? We were not given any dinner to begin with! One little bout of sour stomach does not mean our hunger will abate until morning! We followed Tripwire, rubbing at his heels.

He toweled off the couch and leaned back, sliding down to sit on the floor. We rubbed up beside him, telling him that we were hungry. Tripwire sighed, and reached out to pet us again. His hands are steady but tired, and we can feel his concern for Kittenbrother in how he lingers on our back. We are concerned for Kittenbrother, too. We feel that we can solve everything once we have eaten supper.

But Tripwire stands, takes the towels to the sink and then sits back with his coffee. Again we must follow him and rub against his ankles. Again we meow, because we know that perseverance is the key to getting what we want.

Tripwire looks back at us and asks us if we want to go outside. Clearly he does not understand that we are hungry. Still, we try to use his logic. Perhaps if we go outside for a short time, he will let us back in and believe that we are now well enough to be fed. Yes, we would like to go outside. We scamper to the door.

We do not like the outside for so long, because our fur gets damp and the walls smell bad. Long Whiskers does not let us out for very long because he fears that we might get hurt or sick. Tripwire is usually as meticulous about letting us in as he is with his wires and lights that flash. But tonight he is exhausted, and the door never opens.

Now we find our self outside the door that is too thick to meow through.

We sit down. We would lick our paws, but they smell like the sewer and this bothers us. We wish we were in Kittenbrother's room right now, sleeping by his side.

We do not admit it, but we worry.


	4. Exile

**Exile **

It gets very cold outside the lair at night, and we are very thankful that our fur is thick and warm. There are some times that we wonder how the Hands survive the cold without any fur, though we have seen themselves wrap up in blankets and false skins. It is hard for us to fall asleep out here. The smells are constantly changing. Like running past cages of unknown threats, we cannot tell if what we smell is simply garbage, or something dangerous. We cannot relax as we do on the couch or in Kittenbrother's bed. We must keep vigilant.

The footsteps startle us. We would not say scared. We are not afraid. But we back off into the darkest depths of shadow. We do not know what might be prowling the sewers this late at night, so our eyes glow dimly orange and our fur stands on end. We are big. In the darkness we wait to see what comes, and we steel our self to pounce.

Wait… do we know this hand? Slowly we sniff at the air, and we smell familiar smells. Smells of iron and incense, sweat and pizza. Yes, this is one of our catfamily. We relax but we keep our fur at attention…. Just in case.

We had forgotten that Mirror was out. But we see his form, clearly. His face is drawn, and somewhat ashen. His steps are focused but exhausted. His movements are like a marionette with squeaky hinges, the joints rusty from exhaustion. Tripwire would be very cross at him, and probably insist that he start drinking something nourishing. We think that chicken broth would be a marvelous idea. We enjoy the remnants of the chicken broth cups very much.

He approaches and fiddles with the handles that open the door. We linger back for a second or two. Despite our wanting to go in, Mirror is the Hand we share the least amount of time with. We must be cautious at times like these. From the shadows we give a little mew.

Mirror turns to us, startled and narrows his eyes to peer through the darkness. Slowly we advance, whiskers twittering as we sniff the air. Mirror gives us a small smile and speaks.

What did he say? We turn and stare at him with the most petulant expression we can muster. We do not endure having smelly goo rubbed down our back once a month to be called a fleabag, thank you very much. As soon as the door is opened we run past Mirror, and enter first. As he crosses the threshold we turn our back to him and express our displeasure by ignoring his movements, instead becoming engrossed in licking the spot right over our rear end.

Head in the air, we deny that there is a Hand in the room, and we fastidiously go about sniffing the corners and the doors. We can smell Tripwire and hear him snore. We can smell Cornerstone in his place, and Kittenbrother from behind the door we cannot cross. We can smell Long Whiskers, his tea and incense draining underneath the door. He is awake, though he does not stir. This is good. Everything is still in its place.

After the proper amount of chastising is done, we creep back to the kitchen to see what Mirror is up to.

**Understanding**

We watch from our den on the counter, but Mirror does not move. He seems to be engrossed in himself, staring off towards the door we cannot cross. Did Mirror speak to Tripwire? Would he know of our incident with the returning meat-log? We do not think so.

We understand that the minds of the Hands are full tonight, and unlike the mind of a cat, which can handle many dozens of things at once, the Hands start to slow down when they think of many things. So we decide to make ourselves as clear as possible. Taking long, slow strides, we walk over to the cupboard that holds our food and meow once, longingly.

Mirror looks over and crinkles his brow at us. He speaks and we tip our head at him. Yes, everyone most certainly did forget to feed us. We attempt another meow to communicate the urgency of our needs. Finally Mirror stands and walks over to the can opener.

We forget that this is Mirror for a few seconds. We forget that this is the loud Hand who likes to shoo us from the top of the couch when we are most comfortable. A purr rumbles through our body and we rub against his arm as he cracks the seal on the mystical can. Our tail twitches as the smell hits our nose. Chicken. It has never smelled better.

We follow him to our bowl, and rub our head against his hand as he pours our food. We are inviting him to join us. Not out of our bowl of course, but that he should get something to eat as well. It will not offend us.

We purr as we eat, everything vibrating rhythmically, until we have had our fill. We sit back and think as we wash our paws and put everything in order. Life seems so much better now, decisions are clearer. When we finish we jump to the table to peer at Mirror, but he is not eating. Our tail flicks irritably, did we not say it was all right? We head over to see what is up.

He is sill looking off towards the door where Kittenbrother lay. Tilting our head we cautiously come nearer, and we flatten our ears, ready to skitter off when he raises a hand to us. But he does not shoo. He scratches our head with tense, clumsy skritches. When we look up we see what is written across his face. What was hidden now shines clearly in the darkness, free to escape now that he is alone. Mirror's brows crease with worry, but it is the eyes that shine with guilt and despair. This does not make sense to us. We cannot remember any blame in Cornerstone's expression. In fact, we wee sure that it was not there.

We take a few steps back, confused and our whiskers twitter. Mirror's hand drops back to the table, he does not seem to notice that we have left. We know that many strange things can happen while the Hands are out in the overworld, but we cannot imagine any of the Hands intentionally hurting Kittenbrother. We sat down and lick our paw, pretending that we are not watching him.

We understand that the Hands are very unforgiving of themselves. They place more responsibility on their own shoulders than anyone should need to bear. Slowly things start to unravel.

We do not usually listen to words like 'I should have stayed' or 'why didn't I look for him' because they do not have the n-word, and they do not mean food, nor come here nor have our name, but we understand what they mean. They are words that make a Hand impose exile on himself, even though the catfamily sees no blame.

Now we understand why Cornerstone stayed. He was as concerned for the brother who needlessly blamed himself as he was for the brother that was injured.

We stand, our tail taught in the air. This is not right, we are the one who decides who remains in the catfamily and who is put out and we still claim Mirror as our hand. There is no arguing with our decision. We put our head down, and move in fearlessly, our purr rumbles through our body. We rub our chin up and down Mirror's arm; we mark him with our scent. He is ours.

The clumsy scratches turn to clumsy pets, which continue on until we hear the noise of a door. Almost as silently as a whisper Long Whiskers crosses the living room and stands at the entrance to the kitchen. We can see in his eyes that he agrees with us.

We jump from the table to leave father and son in peace.

**Hammock**

We have never been invited into this room before. Well, to tell the truth we were not invited this time, either but the door was left unlocked. That is invitation enough for us. Mirror lives in this room, and it is almost always barricaded shut. Now we understand why. There are piles of odd things that would make an effective blockade if placed properly. We can hear the soft snores from Mirror, but we do not see a bed.

What is this? It is like a giant ball of yarn hung in the air! And it contains a sleeping Hand, how marvelous! We have never seen anything like this before.

Very carefully we pick our way up a pile and onto a chair, and from the chair to the dresser so we can have a birds-eye view of the yarn-bed. Snuggled inside lays mirror, with blankets and sheets wrapped around him. Our whiskers twitch and our tail flicks, calculating the distance to be jumped. We believe we can make it without a problem.

A jump is always better with a tail wind up, and to make sure, we wind up three times before pushing off with our back feet. In midair we get the sinking feeling that we have overestimated. We were supposed to land softly by the legs, but we land onto Mirror's chest.

We pause, wide eyed. We are innocent, as a newborn kitten. Mirror grunts loudly, but he does not wake up. Instead he tosses and turns, flinging an arm around and lashing out with a chunk of sheet. We find ourself trapped between Mirror's side and the yarn-bed.

After several long moments he relaxes again and starts to snore, and we may wriggle out of our confinement. It is soft here, and unusually comfortable up in the yarn bed. We are very tired.

Mirror is not Kittenbrother, but he is warm nonetheless.

**Breakfast**

We were purring and kneading the blankets when Mirror awoke. He stared at us, and looked quite startled and since he was startled we were startled as well. What does he mean what are we doing here? We are comfortable; of course, do not let the draft in.

We find ourself picked up and deposited on the floor. We look back up at Mirror, and then content ourself with preening our whiskers. If Mirror does not want us in his yarn-bed anymore then of course we never wanted to be there in the first place. That should show him. We were about to climb back onto the dresser and attempt the jump again, but we hear our name. We listen more closely and we can hear the magic sound of the can opener, too. Breakfast!

Mirror grumbles lightly and rolls over. Before we are out of the door he is snoring again.

**Appreciation**

We thought that breakfast would be served by Tripwire as a humble apology for the misunderstanding last night, but when we arrive in the kitchen we found Cornerstone scooping the food into our dish.

We are not as hungry as we were last night, so we dine lightly. Cornerstone heads to the table and starts to drink from his cup. The kitchen is very quiet. We can hear the light sounds of Tripwire off…somewhere. At times he is as hard to track down as the mice we chase under the fridge. Kittenbrother has still not emerged. Mirror is sleeping, and Long Whiskers must be in his room.

But our food is in our bowl, and everything seems to be in its place. Cornerstone is still here, holding up his pat of the catfamily. We watch him and wonder if he ever feels in exile like Mirror? Does he enjoy being out here all alone?

We head to the table and push at his feet. He leans down to rub our ears and that is all the invitation we need. We jump to his lap. Slowly we can feel him settle back in the chair and relax as he drinks his tea and pets our coat.

Sometimes even the most solid of Hands needs to be reminded that they are in our catfamily and this has not changed.


	5. Waiting

**Nonchalance**

It is past midday and our home is very still. All of the catfamily is inside, but they are quiet, and we find this unnerving. We understand that they are young, and they have much energy so when they are all quiet we find that an eerie sense of silence settles across the lair.

We hear things in the silence that we do not usually hear. We hear a whirr behind the television. Is it a mouse? We must check! But when we look there is no mouse, not even a cockroach. There is only a blinking light in the back of one of the silver boxes and wires that do not taste good. Then we hear a clicking in the bathroom and it begins again.

We do not like to be outwitted by the house, so we ignore it. We are superior to shiny boxes and dripping water. We prove this by showing the catfamily how calm and reserved we are. We lick our paws.

We lick our paws for a very long time, and slowly we realize that they are clean. They are very clean, but we have licked them anyways. Much like Tripwire continues to wash the dishes even though they are all clean, too. The whole catfamily must keep busy, or they would all be jumping at ghost-mice.

**Company**

We were going to stretch and see what Tripwire was up to after the water had been drained from the sink, but it was fortunate that we lingered because the door opened. We did not have to pretend that we meant to be there all along when we came running because we were there all along. How very clever we were to think of it in the first place.

The first thing that enters through the door is a smell. A wonderful delicious smell of meat that has been soaking in juice as it cooked. Other smells came too, but they were not important. We slink forward to see who could be bringing such a divine offering to us.

Our tail curls and we feel a purr coming on as we see that it is Cloud and White Mask entering our lair. Just to see them and have the hands to be petted is good, the gifts of meat might redeem this dismal day. Tripwire and Cornerstone agree with us, for them come to the door and start to speak. It is more noise then we have heard all day, and we are pleased.

The meat moves to the kitchen, the voices and the catfamily follow it. Cornerstone is speaking to Cloud, and we decide to move over. We would like to be close to the meat, but there is a cover so we will settle for being close to the softest hands in the lair. Cloud takes her cue well, and we reward her with a purr before we feel the need to stare petulantly at Cornerstone.

Do not tell Cloud that she should not have brought the meat! We do not understand this silly show of gratitude by denying the meat! The meat smells delicious and therefore we are happy. If Cornerstone says that again we are taking his share. And ours.

**Repose**

We must congratulate Cloud for her cleverness. The meat was delicious and we are lovingly washing the last bits of juice from our paws, but what strikes our ears is sound. The heady pleasant noise of the catfamily. We should have known that a good meal might pull them together. Even Mirror sits in the main room with the others. But he is not our target tonight.

White Mask is here. We have already gotten our pets from the soft hands of cloud, and we feel connected to White Mask, so on his lap we must sit. Why does he always seem surprised when we jump up?

It must be a game. He will push us away and we will return. He will push, we will return and then he will not push, he will move his hands and pet. We have trained him well.

We settle, stretching out butt up to the petting to show White Mask how much we care for him by offering him the choicest bits to pet. If the mood was lighter we might even flick his nose with our tail to tell him how much we enjoy the petting, but his hands are tense. The catfamily is stressed.

We can see this in small ways. The way that Cloud fusses with her hair, making it stick out at odd angles. The last time we tried to do that with our paws she shrieked like she had been bitten, and we were tossed injudiciously to the floor.

We see how Cornerstone watches the gathering, as if he were guarding everyone, ready to strike at some unseen enemy in the shadows.

Mirror is quiet, contained. His eyes are wide; wider than normal, reflecting back the pain on the faces of the catfamily. Absorbing it inside of himself.

We see Tripwire as he picks up the remote and removes the batteries for no reason, only to flip them around and put them back again. He repeats this with the flashlight left haphazardly on the coffeetable.

Long Whiskers sits, the calm in the storm. We watch his whiskers quaver, sometimes they are the best indication of his true thoughts. They are stiff and the flick about as his head turns. We think of them like little antennae, trying to pick up the smallest details of everything around him.

And at the last there is White Mask, who we purr for. His hands are rough but we do not mind. His fingers are tight and they do not flow down our back like they usually do. We nuzzle our head against his hand, he is forgiven for these faults.

Tripwire speaks and suddenly stands, excusing himself from the circle, and the conversation gets quiet. We look up to White Mask and find that he forgot to wear his mask tonight. His face shows clear concern, and his eyes drift to the locked door.

**Entry**

The locked door, the one with Kittenbrother behind it has been opened. We could not believe that Tripwire would be so sloppy, but we could not resist taking a peek. It was only after the entire catfamily followed that we realized that we were invited, which is somehow less fun.

We watched Tripwire, wondering if we would be exiled again for jumping up when he reached down and picked us up. An engraved invitation, just for us. We consider this a decent apology.

Kittenbrother's eyes are closed, just like he is sleeping. He is not as warm as he usually is, and we feel the need to rub against him, as if we can share heat. He stirs lightly and turns towards us, and we feel that this is a very good sign, so while the hands are speaking we walk up to his face and gently touch our nose to his.

We are about to purr when we catch the slightest hint of a smell.

**Memories**

The smell is familiar. We cannot say how, but it reminds us of something in the before time. Far back when we lived in the above lands. Very long ago.

We were small then. Much smaller than we are now. We remember being in a house with many hands, most of them only stopping long enough to pull our tail before running off again. We did not consider them part of our catfamily so we never gave them names.

We have not thought of the before times for ages. Little things come trickling back to us, and we remember little brothercats. Many little brothercats all squirming around one another, all fighting in the darkness for food. And when there was light, we remember sleeping in a pile of brothercats because in the many it was safe and warm.

We forgot our brothercats when we got our catfamily, we did not need to remember them, we had Kittenbrother to keep us safe and warm. But slowly we remember.

We were small, but large enough to stretch our legs, to venture out alone. We traveled out of the cardboard cave with our brothercat, both of us wanted to scale the mountain of stairs. The house was quiet then, and we thought the hands had left. We did not know that they were hiding and waiting to run.

There was screaming and noise as brothercat tried to jump down from the first ledge on the mountain. But his legs were weak, and we could not help him. We remember him screaming for Mothercat. That is when the hands came.

Up and down the stairs they ran, up and down. Their feet were like thunder and we were very frightened. We heard brothercat scream again and then he was quiet. We did not want to look up, but we had to, and we saw one of the hands had stepped on our brothercat. We did not have steady legs, but still we ran to find him.

He seemed all right. His eyes were open, and he was warm. He did not walk fast. One of the hands had to carry him to the cave. We could see he had a little nosebleed. We were not worried.

We should have been.

Slowly, over the next few days, our brother cat got slower and slower. He did not play, he no longer wanted to scale the mountain. All he wanted to do was sleep. Even after they wiped the nosebleed away all he did was sleep. Not long after that he never woke up again.

Just before he slept forever we remember he had a strange smell to him. The same smell we can smell on Kittenbrother.

We look to Tripwire in a panic. Kittenbrother is much larger than our brothercat. He is much older. He is much stronger. He cannot possibly fall asleep forever.

Can he?

Tripwire must know. He must tell us. He reaches out a hand and gives us a long, steady pet. His words are soft and clear. We will know tomorrow.

Tomorrow has never felt farther away.


	6. Daybreak

**Couch**

We do not remember falling asleep, but we must have because we did not end up where we began. We had curled around Kittenbrother's hand, our throat vibrating with the soft, tenuous, nervous purr we use to remind our self of nestling by Mother's chest. If we purr, we are safe. If we purr Kittenbrother is safe. We were going to stay up, keep vigil all night, but we did not.

It must have been Tripwire who moved us. Only Tripwire has such careful hands to be able to lift us and not wake us. We stretch slightly and look around, realizing that we are warm. There are blankets around, and when we turn we find we are in Tripwire's arms. This is not his lair, it is the main room, the crotchety couch that smells of age and pizza. Slowly we poke Tripwire's face with our nose. His cheek is warm and our nose is cold, so he grunts and shifts a bit. But he does not wake up. His fingers clench and unclench in his sleep as if he is reaching out for someone.

We pause a moment. Slowly we wriggle free of the blankets and look around, contemplating the stillness of the lair. Our stomach does not hurt, we do not need to be fed. We accept that Tripwire can sleep longer.

As we turn back to Tripwire, we sink back into his lap and place our head under his fingers. The clenching relaxes, and turns into a soft scratch as he draws the blanket around us into a nest. Slowly we purr. Mothercat is not here, but it is OK. The catfamily stays together. We assure Tripwire it will be ok because we are here. We purr for our self.

We purr for Tripwire.

**Chicken with Rice**

We love Chicken with Rice. It comes in an orange can, a mystical can, and there is a tiny, flat little othercat that looks like the brothercats we foggily remember. It is our favorite.

Long Whiskers is in the kitchen, and we roll off the couch as Tripwire blearily heads to the bathroom. He is making the can opener sing its magic song and we stretch to check it out. Long Whiskers knows which cans we fancy, and his choices are very wise. Cornerstone does not care which cans we fancy, he is very practical about the cans. He will check the little numbers on them and line them up in some academic fashion according to said numbers, dispensing them in order.

Kittenbrother is the best at the cans. He has the magic touch, just picking out what seems right. Sometimes luck is perfect with him.

We hope that it remains perfect now.

Long Whiskers, however understands that this time is tough, even for us. So he offers Chicken and Rice into our bowl, and we come over to sniff it. As always it smells delicious.

We are not hungry.

We cannot help it, but something in our stomach tells us that it does not want to eat. A slow creeping feeling of sickness that washes over us. We sniff once again and then turn away. Behind us, Long Whiskers frowns.

We turn to watch him, and we understand why he frowns so deeply. At one end of the table sits Cornerstone. His plate of eggs and toast has hardly been touched. At the other Mirror pushes bits of cereal across the surface of the milk they are floating in, staring into the bowl as if he could divine the future from it.

We understand that milk is wonderful, but we have never found any messages within it other than 'this wonderful white stuff makes us feel rather ill, and we think we should go vomit on Cornerstone's bed now.

We sincerely hope that Mirror is not going to go vomit on Cornerstone's bed. He gets rather cross as us when we do that, and we are much smaller than Mirror.

So we watch as Long Whiskers sits down and starts to talk, prodding the catfamily to eat. It is like watching an ant climb up a mountain of sand. As his feet keep moving upward the sand underneath keeps slipping downward so no matter how hard he tried, his goal always remains in the distance.

Such as it is with Long Whiskers and the breakfast.

**Cracks in the Stone**

We moved from the kitchen to the living room, hoping to make sure that there were no mice in the VCR, when we heard heavy footsteps. Our first thought was that they belonged to Mirror for his footfalls are usually loud and often angry, but we were surprised to see Cornerstone walk out of the kitchen, his hands clenched tightly by his sides.

Slowly we slunk under the couch, to spy on him from where he could not see us. His cheeks are red and his skin seems drawn tightly across his face, as if he was trying to hold something behind his eyes. He turns slowly to the locked door and his hands clench more tightly. There is a pause before he walks with heavy footsteps off towards his lair.

Silence fills the room, and Tripwire looks confused as he comes out of the bathroom, heading for the kitchen. We thought that Long Whiskers would follow Cornerstone, but it was not to be.

It is Mirror who enters the living room. We slink backwards, readying ourself for a fight, but we can see a small tone of softness in his eyes, something that says he is not going to argue. We are understandably curious, and we dare to follow him as he walks down the hallway.

We can hear voices as soon as Mirror crosses the threshold to Cornerstone's lair. They are loud at first, trailing off into softer tones as we peer around the corner.

Cornerstone sits, his shoulders drooped and his face falling downwards. We do not see him like this often: he is not stone. He is flesh.

Mirror's words are calm. Despite how rough they might seem, the make sense. Slowly Cornerstone raises his head and nods.

We could have told Cornerstone that it was not his fault, but something tells us that it would not work. Yet in the small lair, we watch as Mirror puts a hand on Cornerstone's shoulder and both members of the catfamily are strengthened.

Perhaps it takes a reprieve by your biggest challenger to make the situation bearable again?

**Names, Revisited**

Even since we can remember being called a name we held that it was, in fact, not our name. The hands have many theories of what our name might really be, but they can never truly know what it is.

So, for them, we have names that we tolerate and names that we do not. We tolerate our name, but it is not ours. This is why we never come when called. If the Hands really want us to come they must use our real name. And only we know our real name.

Our Hand name is only important in its context. Usually it is used for the magic time of the can opening, which we will come readily or it is used to express displeasure. We ignore this name at will. If we smell food we might not, but in most every other situation it is merely a word, which gives reassurance to the Hands that they have some sort of silly command over things. If they can name something, they believe they control it and we would like them to know that nothing could be further from the truth. So, in order to let them understand their place in the catfamily we do not listen to our name much. It is a trivial thing, it has never been important to us.

Until now.

**We Are the Klunk**

We were sitting on the couch when we heard it. Barely more than a whisper, we sat up so fast that it felt like electricity had been shot through our body, coursing from the point of our nose to the tip of our tail. One word, one call.

"Klunk…"

That voice, unmistakable! We leapt from the couch and we did not even look to see if the door was open. We knew it would be, if only because we were trusting in Tripwire's accuracy. We sped through the house, our feet sounding like a herd of buffalo across the ratty carpet, past the threshold, into the room. It was a jungle of legs: green legs, brown legs, legs moving and Hands talking. We twisted through them, finding a perfect path through the obstacles and up to the table. We have honed this skill by twining through legs as our Hands tried to use the toilet. We are glad that we could put this skill to use.

We turned and mewed, hoping that the voices would stop. We waited patiently as blue eyes rose to meet our gaze, and one word was repeated.

"Klunk…"

An invitation! We leap from the table to the bed and warm hands catch us. We are petted! The hands are weak, and they shake, but it does not matter. We are in the hands of our beloved Kittenbrother and that is all we need to know. We look up at him and mew once more, as if pleading to him not to sleep on us again. It takes a while and we can see that his eyes are foggy, but he smiles.

"Klunk!"

Never before have we been so happy to hear that name. Never before have we come to it. We nestle in Kittenbrother's arms as the catfamily starts to speak again.

Here, in the warmth we realize something we never thought of before. Many things seemed so important to us. Our cans, our rounds about the lair. Chasing the shiny things under Tripwire's bed, sneaking into Mirror's lair.

Yet now we realize in hearing our name, a new thought. What matters most to us is not what we control, but what we are a part of. Our catfamily is as important to us as we are to them. Slowly we start a deep rumble in our belly, our best purr.

We have denied it since we heard the word, but in this moment we accept that we are Kittenbrother's and he is ours.

We are happy.

We are the Klunk.

* * *

_Author's Notes: I was surprised to see the response this little story received, and I humbly and gratefully thank all of the reviewers who commented upon this piece. I didn't think I could pull off this story seriously when I started, but here it is! I had originally plotted it as a four chapter story, so it even grew beyond my own original thoughts. _

_Thank you all for your kindness and patience, and peace!_

_PSG._


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